While the House was getting things ready for the current legislative session debating whether its members could carry guns on the House floor, the Senate has hit the ground running with productive legislation, not in-house squabbling.

Hopefully a sign of more good legislation to come, Senate Bill 1 would boost the R&D tax credit and directly confront the challenges facing New Hampshire — promoting job growth and the economy.

It will also signal that the Senate side of the New Hampshire Legislature is serious about the future of the Granite State.

As reported Wednesday by our reporter, Jim Haddadin, this legislation would increase the pot of money for research and development credits from $1 million to $2 million annually. It was passed unanimously and in bipartisan fashion by the Senate Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday. Hopefully it will receive similar support during a Senate floor vote that may come as soon as today.

The tax credit was enacted in 2007. It offers businesses a tax break of up to $50,000 to offset the labor costs associated with qualified manufacturing research and development work. The credit is first applied against the business profits tax. Any remainder may then be applied against the business enterprise tax (a dreadful mistake made under an earlier Republican governor). The credit was set to expire after five years, but it was extended last August for another two years. Without further action from the Legislature, the credit will now expire on July 31, 2015.

While it would not increase the credit until 2015, SB1 would charter a clear course for businesses looking to grow and more importantly expand in New Hampshire, thus creating jobs in the near and long term.

As with the last session, it appears the Senate may have to play the role of adult in the room. It was the Senate that often quashed the misguided excesses of the House over the last two years. Among the most notable were myriad efforts to deregulate guns and eliminate the need for professional licensing.

Unfortunately, the House, under Speaker Terie Norelli, is charting its own course of misguided extremes starting with efforts to increase regressive taxes such as those levied on gasoline and vehicle registration. And of late, there is a proposal to increase the cost of doing business in New Hampshire by upping the minimum wage, rather than promoting job growth which makes employers compete for workers and raises wages in honest fashion.

Editorially, we often found support among our readers for calls to have then-Speaker Bill O'Brien drill some sense into the heads of his fellow House members. It was a call that went unanswered. Children will be children is how we saw O'Brien's response as he argued every member was entitled to be heard — to have his or her day in the spotlight. Well, voters clearly failed to agree with O'Brien and sent much of his ilk packing last November.

We can't help wonder — out loud and in print — why Speaker Norelli has not learned the lesson of O'Brien. We take little solace in seeing her party's butt kicked in two years, as was that of the GOP. We would take greater pleasure in congratulating Democrats and Republicans for working together to create jobs and right the economy — as we believe SB 1 will start to do.